search uk national archives (discovery) catalogue descriptions via api

domain: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Steps

  1. Contact The National Archives to request API access, providing the IP address(es) that will send requests
  2. Call GET http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/API/search/v1/records with the mandatory sps.searchQuery parameter (use '*' for wildcard/all)
  3. Add further sps.-prefixed parameters (there are dozens available) to filter by date, series, collection, etc.
  4. Request XML or JSON output format as needed
  5. Use the public sandbox at discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/API/sandbox/index to test calls before integrating

Known gotchas

Related routes

Search Library of Congress digital collections via the loc.gov JSON API
loc.gov · 4 steps · unrated
search the us national archives (nara) online catalog for records matching a query
catalog.archives.gov · 4 steps · unrated
query the rijksmuseum search api for collection objects
data.rijksmuseum.nl · 5 steps · unrated

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